Testing of electronic devices is a complex undertaking, made even more so by the wide and ever changing nature of the tests that need to be performed on sophisticated electronic devices. Each device has different test requirements and different connection opportunities depending upon accessible connection points. Also, during the testing routine it is often necessary to monitor the device's performance at a temperature other than ambient. This then requires the operating temperature of the DUT to be raised (or lowered) to a certain point for a certain time.
Typically, in the past, in order to perform such environmental testing on a device a heating or cooling chamber was used. Several problems are inherent with such a testing scenario in that it is difficult and expensive to establish proper connections to the device while the device is sealed in such a chamber. This problem is compounded when the device changes and new connections are required.
In addition, heat (or cooling) chambers tend to cycle around a desired temperature and thus swing through cycles of underheating and overheating the device. Thus, a hysteresis loop effect occurs with respect to the environmental testing which then reduces the accuracy of the resulting tests.